Conventionally, element management systems (EMS) provide fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security (FCAPS) functionality. These systems discover and maintain a database of physical components (e.g., links, ports, devices) and logical components (e.g., virtual local area networks (VLANs), link aggregation). Management systems may then be used to configure certain physical and logical components to configure services. Configuration is often accomplished via configuration templates, command line interface (CLI) scripting, and service activation tasks, such as provisioning wizards. Disadvantageously, some existing management platforms require network elements to be physically present and available. Of note, with some management platforms, it may take significant periods of time to recover subsequent to the unavailability of one or more network elements. Some management platforms, on the other hand, just consider some devices unreachable. However, a common constraint is that network elements must exist in the network.